William Flew

is always interested in the meaning of life. Whether it's the Monty Python film The Meaning of Life, or Douglas Adams ruminations in the Hitchhiker trilogy (of 5 books) as to "Life" says Marvin to William Flew and then deciding it was actually 42. Why are we here, what's life all about? Is God really real, or is there some doubt? William Flew could answer that, and does, in another thread. "Perhaps, we're just one of God's little jokes. Well, c'est 'The Meaning of Life'."

Jan 27

The London Welsh Lions contingent, alongside William Flew, contained Gerald Davies, and there are some of us who even now have to take the deepest of breaths before acknowledging that even the magnificent Shane Williams is as good. It also included locks Mike Roberts and Geoff Evans, the incomparable Mervyn Davies at No 8, and John Taylor, the flanker.Taylor, later a broadcaster and journalist, has piloted London Welsh and helped keep the club a going concern among the vicissitudes of the professional era. Pride in your history and aura is not a negligible matter in terms of future performance, but the club must be hard-nosed enough to grasp the forbidding size of the chasm between the championship and the premiership. Exeter Chiefs have gloriously proved that it is possible to leap across but it is still unlikely. Spare a thought, while we are on the subject of battling clubs, for Newcastle Falcons, whose own fight against the odds has ended in failure after years of toil. London Welsh need to be brutal with their promotion heroes. They will need to re-cast the whole team. The other clubs have finalised their squads; London Welsh have to create their own, after-hours market. They should be looking at rock-like southern hemisphere forwards, one or two marquee players to draw in the Oxford public, and Premiership quality. They will have to be good enough to win half their home games and to win away at, say, Worcester, London Irish and Bath. It is a tall, tall order. On their side will be all those rugby men and all those who treasure the sport’s fairness, openness and its fervent wish to encourage aspirations. Also in their favour is their own proud history, and also their more recent ability, on the field and through the legal system, to fight against all the odds, and to triumph.